


a crucial lack of buoyancy

by Spineless



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: (Almost), (my favorite tag), Drowning, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Parental Roy Mustang, some self indulgent whump because sometimes... you gotta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 07:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15383382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spineless/pseuds/Spineless
Summary: Ed almost drowns while chasing down a criminal. Luckily Mustang remembers his First Aid training.





	a crucial lack of buoyancy

**Author's Note:**

> T for language. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I can't swim, nor am I a paramedic. If you see someone in distress in water, call emergency services.

Damn, that kid is _fast_. 

Mustang’s breaths come quick and end on a slight wheeze, turning to clouds in the winter air. He can feel his lungs burning, his calves burning, his eyes burning from the sweat that drips down his forehead as he sprints down the street, and he’s a pretty fit guy. Being in the military drills a certain routine into your everyday life, and his slight competition with Hughes from the academy never quite faded; Roy wasn’t going to let Maes’ taunts of “ _Going soft, Colonel?_ ” become reality. But still, this twelve––no, thirteen––year old _child_ is ahead by practically a whole block. 

“Fullmetal, _stand down!_ ” he bellows for what must’ve been the seventeenth time. “That’s an order!” His subordinate is blocking his line of sight to the person he’s supposed to be chasing. 

“Brother, wait!” Alphonse Elric calls, echoing voice ending with a slight whine. He’s right at Mustang’s heels, clanking loudly as he runs.

But the kid’s just too far ahead. The walkway, right at the edge of the river, with a high wall on one side and a railing against the water, does have an eventual end, one that draws nearer. Just beyond Fullmetal lies the second biggest pain in his ass lately, a backwater alchemist with a grudge who has decided to make the entire _State_ his enemy. He was called Olmstead Pike, and after being rejected from the State Alchemist exam seemed to have a change of heart regarding his desire to serve his country. Normally chasing criminals like this one ought to be Investigations job, but he owed Hughes a favor. It wasn’t supposed to be a difficult mission, not really, just something that broke the East City monotony and could act as more of an example to show Fullmetal some of his duties as a State Alchemist.

Like _following orders_. Listening at briefings. Yielding to superior officers. But no talk about setting up a perimeter or establishing back up mattered, and it was getting more apparent that sometimes, Fullmetal just wanted a fight, and there was little in the world that could stop him from going after one. 

Mustang tries not to think about what _he_ was like at thirteen. His own belligerence, impatience, his emotions constantly awash across his face. And he hadn’t been a third of the alchemist that Edward is. How would _he_ have used the kind of power the kid has?

He really tries not to think about it. He’s got other things to think about, like making sure this terrorist Pike is apprehended _now_.

The enemy-of-the-state stops short, just before the street turns from concrete to river. Ed barrels right into him and for just one second, he’s not fast enough. Moving with precision Pike grips his hair and smashes his head against the low bank railing. Mustang feels it like a blow to the stomach. Alphonse gasps behind him. They’re too slow. He’s raising his hand to snap, to do something, finally, but he’s still too slow. He’s still too damn far away when the man picks up Fullmetal like a sack of garbage and tosses him into the river. 

His heart stops but he can’t. _That bastard!_

“ _Brother_!” Al’s voice is panicked and fearful and _pissed_. 

The pain-in-his-ass ugly bastard sonuvabitch just grins at him and calls, “You’re gonna have to do better than some kid, Mustang!” before he launches himself at the high bordering wall. He climbs up skillfully, darting off back towards the city. 

 _Shit_.

Alphonse wastes no time. “Colonel, help Ed!” Before Mustang can protest he’s bounding off in pursuit of Pike. 

Mustang takes exactly five seconds to lean forward on his knees and catch his breath and anguish. He knows time is truly of the essence but he also knows he _can’t breathe_. As he gulps down air, he loathes himself. He doesn’t need an even younger child and a _civilian_ at that going after a highly dangerous man wanted by the military. But at least that child can’t suffer bodily harm. That child can’t drown. Edward can. 

There’s no sign of his blond head in the water. Mustang’s coat lies in a pile on the ground, the frigid air immediately invading his body. His fingers twitch as his eyes scan the surface looking for something, anything, when _there_ ––in the water, not far, something red comes floating up. Fullmetal’s coat. Mustang takes five quick breaths before he dives in. 

* * *

There was a lake at the edge of town that their mother would take them in the summer, when it got too hot for just playing in tub in the backyard. They would bring a blanket and stay the day. He and Al would splash along in the shallows, getting their feet stuck in sand while they examined smooth pebbles. Then there were the streams that crossed through the forests in the hills which their mom didn’t like as much as the lake, so the two of them would go alone, or they’d meet up with some kids from the town, and they’d play and splash in the mud and harass frogs and fish until the sun started to set and it was time for everyone to make their way back home. 

Ed hits the surface of the water like glass shattering. The water is so cold it feels as if his whole body is being gripped in a vice. It locks his chest. He can’t manage to take a breath before the water roars around him.

After mom died, there was no one to take them to the lake. They stopped playing in the mud with their classmates and started reading alchemy books in dad’s old study instead. He never learned to swim with flesh limbs, let alone with two made of steel. 

Though his ears ring from his head being bashed, he has enough awareness to realize he’s sinking. He can’t see much, and he doesn’t know which way is up, but he’s not done yet. He has to do something. Ed tries to bring his arms together so he can transmute, maybe turn the water to steam or freeze it and make a platform or something, anything, but he’s having trouble making either of his arms do what he wants them to. Getting tangled in the sleeves of his coat isn’t helping and he knows he doesn’t have much air left. He doesn’t have much time left. After a bit of fumbling, he slips free of the heavy garment. In a detached sort of way, he watches as his coat moves upward to where the darkness of the river is lessened. Bubbles trail from his mouth and follow it up, up, up. 

Ed reaches one hand towards the surface, but despite shedding some weight, he’s still sinking. He tries to press his hands together, but now his arms are _really_ not working. It’s strange. The water from the lake was clear and warm and green and the waters from the streams were clear and crisp and just fast enough. He never knew that water could be this dark and cold, and so much like death. 

* * *

 

Maes used to make fun of him for all the time he spent swimming laps. When they reconnected in Ishval, he said to him, “Wow Roy, I’m sure all those hours you logged at the pool back in the Academy are really gonna pay off here.” They weren’t much help in Ishval, it’s true, but Mustang is glad for them now. Despite the shock of the cold, his body remembers what his brain has forgotten. He cuts quickly through the water, past the soaking red coat, down to where he can just make out the glint of Fullmetal’s arm. He seizes the metal limb and adjusts for the extra weight. Cold and fatigue pull at Mustang’s arms and legs but there’s no way in hell he’s letting Fullmetal go. 

He holds Ed and kicks hard and harder and the light comes down to meet them, none too quickly. Mustang breaks the surface with a gasp, grateful to see the bank isn’t too far. He maneuvers Fullmetal carefully onto dry ground and pulls himself up after. His lungs haven’t stopped screaming, he’s all but numb from the cold, but he still can’t slow down. 

“Fullmetal, can you hear me?” 

Edward’s eyes are closed and his skin is so pale it’s nearly translucent. Fear creeps up Mustang’s throat like bile.

“Alright, Fullmetal, come on.” He swallows that fear. He didn’t reach his station in life, didn’t become a colonel or alchemy master, without the capacity to remember basic first aid training. “You can’t get out of this that easily.”

He gently moves his head to the side and raises his shoulders slightly. Water streams from Edward’s darkened lips and once it stops he’s placed back down. Mustang squeezes his nose shut and administers two breaths. He watches his subordinate’s chest rise and fall and administers two more. Then he waits, feeling the air above his nose and mouth. But there’s nothing: no warm breath against his hand or chest rising autonomously. He clenches his teeth and positions his hands and starts compressions. Mustang counts in his head and tries not to think about how the first aid dummies used for training were so much bigger, how his hands seem huge against Fullmetal’s torso. 

In the middle of the second round of compressions, Fullmetal flinches violently and takes a gasping breath that sounds like glass shattering. Mustang moves without hardly realizing it, taking Edward’s shoulders and helping him sit up as he coughs and gags. Once he’s done retching he curls in on himself and starts shivering and doesn’t stop.

Mustang’s abandoned coat lies in a heap nearby, right where he left it. The Colonel picks it up and lays it over the boy. “Just take it easy, alright? Just breathe.” For once, Edward has nothing to say. His gold eyes are glassy but he nods once in acknowledgement.

Mustang takes a seat next to him and finally breathes. The cold and adrenaline have him shaking all over. He feels like he was just in a five-on-one battle and almost lost. He knows he has to check in with his back up and tell them that Alphonse went off on his own, he knows he has to get Edward to a hospital, but he also knows that if he tries to stand up right now, he might fall back into the water. 

So he sits and catches his breath and watches Edward catch his breath until he hears hurried footsteps coming from down the block. One set of footsteps is unmistakable, loud and clanking. 

“Colonel Mustang, sir!”

“ _Brother_!” 

He looks up to see Hawkeye and Alphonse hurrying towards them, tailed closely by Havoc. “Fullmetal needs medical attention,” he calls, not waiting for them to get closer. 

Havoc nods––“I’ll get an ambulance,”––and hightails back.  

Alphonse drops to the ground next to them, Hawkeye joining him. He carefully pushes Ed’s bangs back from his face. “This is why you have to _listen_.” His voice is low and tight with emotion. 

Mustang turns to Hawkeye. Her eyes are wide and searching him for injury. He frowns. “Did Pike get away?” This wasn’t going to be a pleasant report.

To his vehement surprise, she shakes her head. “He was no match for Alphonse. Breda’s leading his escort to lock up now.”

He turns and Al is already staring back, his soulfire gaze burning in his helmet. His voice is indescribable. “He underestimated me. That was his last mistake.”

It would be the last time Mustang underestimated the younger Elric as well.

* * *

“Why do I have to stay here overnight?” Even from a hospital cot, concussed and half-drowned, Fullmetal is belligerent. His elbow is thrown over his face in embarrassment, and all he wants to do is melt into the linens and disappear. 

“For monitoring.” Hawkeye answers. Alphonse nods. 

“Monitoring for _what_?”

Mustang counts off on his fingers. “Your head injury, for starters.”

“It’s barely a bump!” The bandage wrapped around his forehead begged to differ.

“Lingering effects of hypothermia.” 

Ed raises his arms, showing off his hospital couture. “I’m all dry now! Nice ’n’ warm, too!”

“And drowning complications.” 

He folds his arms over his chest and looks away, but this time has no argument. 

Roy rubs the bridge of his nose. “The doctors just want to make sure that you’re breathing okay. Fluid in your lungs can lead to pneumonia. If you get pneumonia, you’ll be in the hospital a lot longer than one night. So just relax, okay?”

“I can’t believe you let my baby brother go after a terrorist _alone_.” 

Mustang, Hawkeye, and Alphonse heave a collective sigh. 

“Ed.”

“My _baby brother_ ––!”

“You are only fourteen months older than me!” Alphonse throws his arms up in a gesture slightly too wide for the curtained-off area around Edward’s bed. Hawkeye dodges an elbow.

“It's fourteen months and eleven days, and those fourteen months and eleven days make a difference!”

“Colonel Mustang didn’t “let” me do anything, I had an opening and I took it!” Al sighs again, a sound surprisingly delicate coming from a suit of armor. “What was I supposed to do anyway, jump in after you?”

Ed’s golden eyes widen slightly. “Well, no… but… but if something had happened to you––“

“What, like how something happened to _you_?”

Startled, Mustang glances at the boys and shares a look with Hawkeye. He doesn’t like that emphasis placed on _something_. 

Edward ducks his head and stares at his blanketed legs. His cheeks are hot. “I’m fine, Al, come on.”

“Back by the river, I couldn’t control if you lived or died, but I could control if that _bastard_ got away or not! So yes, brother, I went after him alone, and I would do it again.”

“Alright, boys, that’s enough.” Edward and Alphonse deliberately look away from each other, shoulders to ears. Hawkeye rests a hand at the end of Ed’s bed. “The important thing to keep in mind is that all three of you are okay.”

Mustang feels chastened, but he knows deserves it. It’s true, all three of them acted rashly. It was mostly due to luck and circumstance that they were going to be alright this time. He might not have been able to save Fullmetal from the water, or he could’ve been dragged down too, or Fullmetal’s head injury might have been worse, or Alphonse could have been bested by Pike––there were many ways this afternoon could have gone, and Roy was incredibly grateful events hadn’t gone down a much worse route. He still had to discipline Fullmetal once he was discharged, but he was sure he had his own reprimand waiting for him back at headquarters. 

But still. No use dwelling on what didn’t happen. 

“Fullmetal, get some rest. I don’t want to see you around headquarters for the rest of the week.”

“Not even to hand in my report?”

“I’m giving you some extra time to work on it. Maybe try to make it legible this time?”

Edward rolls his eyes in a way that says _not likely_. 

Hawkeye nods one last time. “Feel better, Ed.”

As Mustang goes to duck around the privacy curtain, Fullmetal calls him back: “Hey Colonel, I didn’t know you could swim!” 

He pauses. Swimming is a solitary sport. All those hours, swimming from one side of the pool to the other, Roy thought about many things: his duties as a soldier to his country, the state of the government, the people he met. Often, he thought about alchemy. He envisioned arrays in his mind, changing them slightly when needed, he repeated the alchemic elements to himself in alphabetical order, density make up, date of discovery. He used to think about all the mistakes he had made, all the mistakes he had yet to make. He turns back slightly. “Aren’t you glad that I can?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to get back into writing shorter pieces for a little bit. I'm almost tempted to take prompts on my tumblr again (ah, those were the days) but I don't know if I'd be able to keep up and fill all of them.
> 
> Anyway. Thanks for reading! Feedback is much appreciated.
> 
> If you do feel inclined to comment, I’d love to know how you came across my fic(s), browsing or recommended or however. Thanks!


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